EMC Corp. is adding new features to some of its storage products, with claims of improved performance, energy efficiency and ease of use, to remain competitive with rivals’ offerings. EMC said its high-end Symmetrix line is being improved with a new model, the DMX-3 model 950, which comes in 300GB and 500GB capacity versions. They are physically smaller than previous Symmetrix models, which means they will take up less space in a data centre. EMC also claims that the new Symmetrix models are more power-efficient than previous EMC models and those from rivals such as Hitachi Data Systems and IBM Corp. EMC is also upgrading its Clariion line so those products can run in either Fibre Channel or iSCSI environments. The CX3 UltraScale series also features a simplified process for configuring storage devices on a network.

Availability: Available now URL: tinyurl.com/yylzsr

Getting the right answers

RightAnswers has announced the launch of its Unified Knowledge Suite. The suite combines the company’s products and services to provide internal help desk organizations with self-service and support analyst software. A number of the company’s help desk management offerings are combined in the suite to simplify management and self-service options for end users with the goal of reducing help desk calls, providing 24/7 automated support for end users, improving first call resolution rates and reducing call escalation.

Availability: Available now URL: www.rightanswers.com

Accounting made simple

Richmond, B.C.-based Sage Software’s Simply Accounting 2007 line of small business accounting software, including Simply Accounting Entrepreneur, Simply Accounting Basic, Simply Accounting Pro, Simply Accounting Premium with Support and Payroll Services and Simply Accounting – Accountants’ Edition, is now available. The company boasts there are over 50 new features and enhancements across the product line for 2007, with a focus on time-saving processes, simplified payroll management, more business analysis, and usability enhancements.

Availability: Available now Pricing: From $69.99 to $899 URL: www.simplyaccounting.com

Dell unveils first Opteron servers

Dell Inc. is coming out with its first servers running Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s Opteron processors. Dell introduced the PowerEdge 6950, a four-socket server, and the PowerEdge SC1435, a two-socket model, last month. Dell says the 6950 is designed for demanding computing work such as database management, server consolidation, virtualization and migration from RISC processor-based systems. The SC1435 is designed to run in dense rack server environments and is targeted at SMBs seeking improved price-performance and energy-efficiency. Up until now, Dell had used only Intel Corp. server processors, but is now joining other server competitors in offering AMD Opteron processors as an alternative to Intel’s Xeon processors.

Apple Computer has unveiled upgraded MacBook Pro laptops that now feature Intel Corp.’s new Core 2 Duo processors and hard drives offering up to 200GB of space. Apple officials said the new MacBook Pros are up to 39 percent faster than the models they replace, largely because of underlying changes to the architecture of the new processor. The RAM is doubled from previous models, to 2GB, and can support up to 3GB. Apple has also added FireWire 800 ports to all MacBook Pro models and increased the maximum size of the hard drives available. The entry-level model ships with a 120GB hard drive and the 17-in. version ships with a 160GB hard drive. All of the new models now feature dual-layer SuperDrives for burning CDs and DVDs

Availability: Available now Pricing: Starting at US$1,999 URL: tinyurl.com/y9gn4b

New IBM service management tools

IBM Corp. is introducing a range of new products and services, many based on technologies coming from recently acquired companies, aimed at helping businesses better manage and take advantage of their various software and hardware systems. A new version of Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database software integrates IT information spread across the enterprise, including information about servers, storage devices, networks, middleware and applications. Also, IBM Tivoli Capacity Process Manager will predict computing capacity and performance, thus helping users reduce network slowdowns and outages. The IBM Service Management Self-Assessment Toolkit will allow users to focus on priorities when designing a service management strategy and the IBM Tivoli Unified Process Composer aims to help new customers begin employing service management.

Available: Tivoli Capacity Process Manager available in Q4, others available now URL: tinyurl.com/heuhj

Sangoma ships PCI line

Toronto’s Sangoma Technologies, a provider of connectivity hardware and software products for VoIP, TDM voice, WANs and Internet infrastructure, is shipping a new product line of enhanced PCI Express cards. The cards are based on the company’s Advanced Flexible Telecommunications family of cards, and the company said PCI Express is a new standard PCI computer bus that uses existing PCI programming concepts but bases it on a completely different and much faster serial physical-layer communications protocol. The result, said Sangoma, is higher density and capacity.

Availability: Available now URL: tinyurl.com/ygf7wp

Web-based HR management app

Nakisa Inc., a Montreal-based developer of workforce management software, has introduced Nakisa OrgManagement Series 2007, its next generation organization charting, succession planning, and workforce modeling application. A new streamlined, Web-based user interface presents customized, dynamic views of real-time workforce data pulled from a range of data sources, such as SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft, into one view with a SOA-based architecture. Also new are a number of automation and collaboration tools, including applications for organizational charts, succession planning, a modeling tool for organizational changes, and tools for employee directories and floor plans.

Availability: Available now URL: tinyurl.com/yd9rmo

Juniper gets speedy

Juniper Networks Inc. has three new products to accelerate movement of applications through networks in the data centre and WAN. Two of the new products, the DX 3280 and DX 3680, are designed for application acceleration in data centres, and the hardware is being announced with a new version of software, DXOS v 5.2. A new Juniper WAN acceleration product, the WXC 590 is available now, and has new WX CMS v5.4 software. Two appliances on a single link can support 45Mbps throughput to 140 sites, according to the company.

Kelowna, B.C.-based Dalco Technologies has launched its Qasper Organizer, a Web-based business information manager designed for the SMB market. It’s a suite of business tools, built on a scaleable Microsoft .NET framework, that the company said goes beyond CRM to support improved corporate planning, sales, service and support. The suite includes over 20 modules, from contact networking and data visualization to document management and order entry. The company said Qasper solves many of the problems associated with on-demand applications by providing an unlimited user license, an offline version, fully controllable databases and optional self-hosting.

Availability: Available now Pricing: $370 per year self-hosted, $500 fully-hosted URL: www.Quasper.com

Addressing com port compatibility issues

StarTech.com has launched a new line of dual voltage PCI Serial Cards with a feature the company says allows users to easily remap com port settings to comply with legacy software applications. It said this was previously not available in PCI cards, causing problems for anyone utilizing legacy software that requires specific com ports to be mapped.

The new dual voltage cards allow up to eight serial devices to be connected to any system with a PCI or PCI-X slot, and the company said they are ideal for devices that have a serial interface such as modems, printers, CNC machines, kiosks and ISDN terminals. One, two, four and eight port models are available.

Availability: Available now Pricing: Starting at US$46.99 for one port card to US$403.99 for the eight port card URL: tinyurl.com/wza6u

Cisco makes meetings go widescreen

Cisco Systems has launched a videoconferencing system, the TelePresence 3000. It’s designed for meetings of as many as 12 people around a virtual table and uses three cameras and large plasma displays. TelePresence is integrated with Cisco’s CallManager software for IP telephony and with Microsoft Exchange, so conferences can be started by calling the other conference room’s number. It can run on an enterprise’s standard IP data network, requiring 10Mbps with low latency across the LAN and WAN.

Availability: Shipping December 2006 Pricing: For two locations, the 3000 starts at US$299,000 and the 1000 at US$79,000, including one year of support URL: tinyurl.com/y3q9vq